VIDEO: Art-inspired tool helps students mold anatomy lessons in clay

The class began playfully enough, with instructor Jennifer Hellier kneading a ball of brown clay and rolling it between the palms of her hands.

But then, as she and four college students manipulated the medium with their fingers and a set of tools, the process morphed into a highly technical lesson on the musles of the human body.

Art meets anatomy.

At the start of a month-long program at Regis University for select college students, Hellier stimulates their interest in the health professions in a variety of ways. But one of her most effective tools, she says, is a system developed by a Colorado company that transforms the complex systems of the body into a hands-on exercise.

“Who doesn’t enjoy being 20 years old and playing with clay?” said Hellier, also a teacher and researcher at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus. “Every single student says this is their favorite part of the entire course.”

The system, called Anatomy in Clay, has its roots in the art world, where in the late 1970s Jon Zahourek taught aspiring students how to draw the human form. Frustrated with trying to teach those skills in two dimensions, he developed models on which students could replicate surface anatomy in clay.

But those models quickly revealed their value as a means to learn anatomy. Zahourek and his wife, Reneé Whitman, launched a business that advanced a variety of practical uses for the approach through workshops.

Today, the models can be found in thousands of classrooms across the country from elementary to medical school — though their primary market is high schools and community colleges.

“As he taught himself anatomy, light bulbs went off in his head,” said Val Zahourek, the founder’s niece and CEO of the Loveland-based company. “Something just clicked, and he had to share this with the world.”

The models come in various stages of complexity and encompass both human and animal anatomy. Although the materials grew from an artist’s perspective, they require no particular artistic talent to manipulate effectively.

Students introduced to the process approach it with very different aptitudes and attitudes about the appearance of their finished product. But no matter how refined their creation, they’re still exposed to the underlying anatomical concepts.

“One of our mottos is, ‘Ugly muscles still work,’” said David Gurulé, a 24-year-old Adams State College graduate who starts pharmacy school in the fall.

The process of molding color-coded clay into muscles and, eventually, other body systems reinforces — or lays the foundation for — the often daunting study of anatomy. And in many cases, it presents the material in a way that better suits a student’s learning style.

“A lot of students are visual and kinesthetic, and they don’t realize how to use it as a learning tool,” said Hellier, the program coordinator of CREATE Health Scholars, which helps undergraduates from rural and underserved areas of Colorado investigate health careers. “By actually using your own hands, you get to build all the different parts of the body.”

The models average about $450 each, but can be divided bilaterally so that each one creates two lab stations. Instructional materials range from $100 to $350 with clay and other accessories running $12 or less.

The company also helps schools identify sources of potential grant money.

Hellier has seen an added benefit when her students begin to understand not only the muscles of the human body, but how to exercise them.

“So some of our weight-lifting guys are like, ‘So when I’m doing a bench press, I’m really working not just my pectoralis major and minor…’ ” she said. “They start getting those connections.”

Colorado Classroom provides ground-level reporting on what’s going on in the state’s public schools and on college campuses, looking at people, places, issues, trends and innovative approaches to education.